The Project Gutenberg eBook, Peter the Great, by Jacob Abbott

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Title: Peter the Great

Author: Jacob Abbott

Release Date: June 21, 2007 [eBook #21889]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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Makers of History

PETER THE GREAT

by

JACOB ABBOTT

With Engravings

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PETER THE GREAT.]

New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1902

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-nine, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.

Copyright, 1887, by Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Austin Abbott, Lyman
Abbott, and Edward Abbott.

PREFACE.

There are very few persons who have not heard of the fame of Peter the
Great, the founder, as he is generally regarded by mankind, of Russian
civilization. The celebrity, however, of the great Muscovite sovereign
among young persons is due in a great measure to the circumstance of
his having repaired personally to Holland, in the course of his efforts
to introduce the industrial arts among his people, in order to study
himself the art and mystery of shipbuilding, and of his having worked
with his own hands in a ship-yard there. The little shop where Peter
pursued these practical studies still stands in Saardam, a
ship-building town not far from Amsterdam. The building is of wood,
and is now much decayed; but, to preserve it from farther injury, it
has been incased in a somewhat larger building of brick, and it is
visited annually by great numbers of curious travelers.

The whole history of Peter, as might be expected from the indications
of character developed by this incident, forms a narrative that is full
of interest and in